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Friday, June 21, 2002

It happens every Sunday. My mother wakes me up at nine
and I get up at 9:30. By the time I’ve taken a dump and a bath they are long
gone.

The church is just a few streets away, a 15-minute
walk. But just in case, to save time, I neither eat nor brush my teeth.

We live in an underground apartment. And every time I
walk up the stairs leading to the street I have to be on the lookout for
dogshit. It’s because those Mormons living next door to us never close the
gate. I always close the gate, because a walking carcass for a dog always comes
underground looking for food and shitting on our stairs. This Sunday I close
the gate and I see the carcass lying in the middle of the street. I throw
stones at it and it goes away.

Down the street I go, then right then left then right
then straight ahead, encountering more dogs and dogshit and those Jehovah’s
Witnesses in the big house who let their dogs mangle my sister last year. Also,
I pass by Mang Mar’s store and catch a glimpse of Marian, who has big boobs,
and her kid sister Marion, who has small boobs but is the bigger slut. They
call me Kuya and I curse God they’re underage. But assured that the years will
pass I go along the streets.

It’s a left, right, left and then left again. Along
the way I see the Protestants and their cars in their small church and I thank
God I’m Catholic. Protestant masses start at nine and last two hours and you
can’t come in late because that’s satanic. Also, they don’t believe in saints
and purgatory and can’t watch Pokémon or read Harry Potter. I’m really
glad I’m Catholic because we don’t have to give 10% of our income to the
church. A few pesos everyday and you’re going to heaven straight or at least
have people to pray for you to get there.

I pass by guys who used to play cards with my father
and drink with my father until my father got a heart attack and became a hermit
and stopped drinking and playing cards. One of these guys recognizes me and
calls me my nickname. I give him two raised eyebrows and a smile.

When I arrive at church the homily is already on. It’s
because it’s Advent and they don’t sing the Gloria, but when regular time
returns I’ll appear less late. I go straight to the front where my family sits.
Mama insists we sit in the front because at the back noisy children will
disturb her listening.

The priest is the Burmese guy from Burma and as I sit
he’s making the people shout alleluia. But the churchgoers remain silent and
some hide their faces and one day I really have to tell the Father this is a
church not El Shaddai. Most churchgoers are like my Mama, they don’t like their
quiet listening disturbed.

But I like the Burmese priest, even though his sermons
run for hours. He knows about globalization and doesn’t think we’re stupid. Our
parish priest, who is a Filipino, once told a homily explaining why God had three
persons. He said it was because God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that we would
construe three as meaning “I love you.” I was so upset I walked out and didn’t
return until everybody was kneeling. My Mama would have gotten mad if I missed
communion.

Minutes pass and the Burmese priest winds it up. We
stand up and pray and kneel and pray and pray some more. Then we give the old
ladies with baskets a few pesos and then hold hands to pray. The only good
thing about our parish priest is that he comes from a good family, i.e., he’s
rich, so there’s no need for a second collection. Our church is getting
renovated and there’s no need for us to fund the Catechists.

More prayers are said and we are made to stand for the
concluding rites. But the announcer has more announcements to make and we have
to endure standing while listening to the Sisters of Mary’s meeting schedules. Finally
the Burmese priest blesses us in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit and we go home as one family, my parents, my sister and I, and we find
out that the Mormons left the gate open again and the carcass has left shit all
over the stairs.

2. I read novels while I shit. My father has his
newspapers. My mother brings her bible. I read novels.

And when I say novels, I mean novels. Usually
two. I finish one chapter each and then concentrate on my waste disposal. Sometimes
though, I forget where I am. Books have that effect on you. Instead of our
yellow bathroom tiles I see the walls of Jericho crumbling down. Replacing the
drip-drop of water from our faucet is Jesus’ blood flowing from His side. My
own foul smell goes away, and I am immersed in Magdalene’s ministrations.

My usual thirty-minute drops then last for an hour,
maybe two. Which upsets my parents. They bang on the bathroom door and shout
severe punishments. Allowance cuts, sodomy. Don’t get me wrong. They’re good
parents, give me lots of presents and listen when I talk. Religious people, go
to church every Sunday and give alms to the poor. But shitting is a need. Like
sex and love. And when you have to go, you have to go. You forget who’s your
son and you forget cursing upsets God and you just have to get in the bathroom
and come down the toilet bowl.

Today is a typical violation on my part. My legs are
inch-deep in water because of a pipe my father fixed the day before. I don’t care. I am reading Nikos Kazantzaki’s The
Last Temptation of Christ, debating myself as to whether or not it is
really better than the movie, or whether the sumptuous atmosphere of my reading
nook is just affecting my aesthetic judgment.

I am about to go on to another chapter when thunder
shakes our wooden bathroom doors and splinters hit my eyes.

“You’ve been there two hours.” It is my father. I am
dead. I put my book on the wooden bookshelf he installed beside the toilet bowl
– so good of him – grab the soap, and wash my ass. Toilet paper here, there,
and everything dry. In pulling up my shorts I bump my bookshelf and the rattled
Last Temptation almost falls into the ever-rising flood. I grab it just
in time.

I think about bringing it with me but then I remember
I haven’t eaten lunch yet and so I drop it on the bookshelf with six of its
fellows. Then I head out.

I pull on the silver doorknob and in comes my father. Still
in his church suit, he doesn’t even give me a glance and just pulls down his
pants. I am about to tell him that the mini-flood caused by his plumbing is
going to destroy the patent-leather boots he is wearing but then he farts so I
just close the door.

My mother is still on our lunch table. Yes, lunch table.
We have three other tables: breakfast, dinner, meryenda. As I sit my self down
she gives me a dirty look but can’t get any scolding out, her mouth full of
fat.

We are having lechon, because it is a Sunday. Every
Sunday for my family is a celebration. It is a celebration for my parents
because in mass they are assured they are going to heaven. It is a celebration
for me because I get to eat lechon.

I love lechon. Although, I have to say, my mother loves
it more. With a gulp of Coke she washes her throat, then wipes her mouth dry on
her sleeve. Then she stands up and prepares my lunch. She gets me a bandehado
of rice and hands me the basket of remaining lechon. We ordered 2 kilos, but
between my mother and father I am left with only half of it. Thankfully, my
sister is enslaved by the phallocentric Judeo-Christian conception of beauty
and doesn’t eat lechon. I can hear her singing outside our house, washing her
clothes.

“Join me,” I say to my mother. “Have another lunch.”

She stokes my hair, leaving rice and oil in it. Then she
sits down and we eat with our hands. We eat in silence but I know she has
forgiven me for staying in the bathroom too long.

We finish eating after an hour. She stands up and I
remain sitting. She takes the plates to the sink and I pick my teeth. She wipes
the table and I sip my Coke. She starts washing the dishes and I see my glass
is running low. I am about to call out to her to ask for a refill when our
wooden bathroom door bursts open and splinters hit my eyes. Tears and blood
blur my vision, which is a good thing too, as my father bursts into our dining
room ass-naked and wet. My bookshelf and books in his arms.

I am about to ask him for a refill when the bathroom
flood comes churning forward and washes my words away.

3. I am in my room. On my bed are my books. The sunshine
shines down through the closed windows to dry them. I sit on the far side of my
bed looking at them: Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Jose
Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Gore Vidal’s Live
from Golgotha. They are wet, but safe. A pity I can’t say the same for my
Nikos Kazantzakis. Or my computer. Or my VCDs. Goodbye The Life of Brian.
So long Dogma. Farewell The Last Temptation—Oh. Christ.

Tears are drowning my nose. I try consoling myself that
I can always order from Amazon, but then I remember my computer is busted.

C’est la vie. So it goes. Shit happens. The sun also
rises. The sun will come out tomorrow. Que sera sera.

God I just hate my father for letting this happen. He
could have prevented the bathroom pipes from bursting. The door opens.

“Father, I just hate God for letting this happen. He
could have prevented the bathroom pipes from bursting.” (Plus, how come my
books got wet and Mama’s bible, which was in the bathroom too, didn’t?) My
father shrugs and starts hanging my underwear on the clothesline he just made
some minutes ago: a pipe from our bathroom, now parallel to my bed, extending
from wall to wall.

My father finishes and I pick up Vidal and try riffling
through his pages. But then my sister comes in carrying her just-washed
clothes, gives my hanging underwear a dirty look and I know she is about to
order me around when the phone rings and she picks it up and starts yapping. I
put the book down and just stare at the ceiling. One can’t read while women are
yapping.

I used to share my room with my brother and sister. It
was very messy then. My brother went to work abroad, and now I only share the
room with my sister. That doesn’t mean the room has changed for the better. If
anything else, it’s become messier.

My bed is located in front of the door, to the right of
my brother’s old closet. I sleep on the upper part of the double deck I used to
share with my brother. When he was still around I slept on the lower part. He’s
in Abu Dhabi now. Him leaving and me ascending was one of the most triumphant
events that happened in my life. The lower part where I used to sleep now
serves as my hamper. The upper part where I now sleep smells like a hamper—that
is, of bodily fluids.

All around the room are tawas molehills, the price I
have to pay for having a sister with white underarms. The tawas makes a rather
nice light/shadow play with the dust that’s also all around the room. Dust
accumulating on our two electric fans, on our low ceiling, on our windows that
are never opened. Now dust will accumulate on the clothesline, too. My mother
used to clean our room. But then she got old. And when you have an old mother
you don’t get your room cleaned anymore.

To the left of the door to the front of my brother’s old
closet stand two more closets, mine. One is a four-drawer Orocan. The other is
a four-drawer wooden one. While I call them my closets I actually share them with
my sister. The Orocan has her pants while the wooden one houses her shirts. She
has another closet at her part of the room. That one’s full of clothes. Because,
God knows, women need clothes. Lots of clothes, or they go whacko.

It’s pretty hard sharing my room with my sister, since
she’s a woman. But I’m not complaining. And I haven’t killed her. Yet.

“Hey toilet boy, would you mind stepping out of the
room?” Her ex is on the phone. I can tell, her eyes are shining. “And bring
your books with you, God they smell like shit.”

4. I am home. My parents are out returning the lechon
we ate, what is left anyway, 1/10 or so. It is spoiled and cost much money. My
sister is bathing, in the bathroom. I am in my room, on my bed. Mama’s bible,
she gave it to me to read to lessen the pain in my stomach, is on my lap. Beside
me are bits and pieces of lechon. Tears are drowning my nose. My stomach
grumbles. I fart.

The phone rings. I jump off my bed but into the room
rushes my sister and she pushes me aside, grabbing the phone.

“Hello? Love?” Her face breaks into a smile, soapsuds
dripping down her body. I cover her naked body with my bathroom towel, and walk
out the room. Mama’s bible in my hands. I fart—this time with bits and pieces
of lechon spilling out with it.

Water from the bathroom is flooding our dining room. I
go inside the bathroom, with Mama’s bible to read. Grabbing the silver doorknob
I close the wooden door. Hurrying, I pull down my pants and sit on the toilet
bowl. Solidliquidgas: my heart is lightened of its burdens.

I riffle through Mama’s bible’s pages. “Let there be
light!”

“And Adam, to preserve the human species, had sex with
the different animals of the earth and the different birds of the air, and they
gave birth to mankind’s different races.”

“The author is God. If you find any mistakes,
contradictions or aporias in this text, rest assured they are only like that to
you.”

“In the beginning was the Bird, and the Bird was with
God. And God had a Bird.”

“This book is not sexist. It is just so that its
female characters are evil, or stupid, or both.”

“Consumatum est, now get me the hell down from this
cross.”

Thunder and lightning shake our wooden door. I manage
to block the splinters from hitting my eye using Mama’s bible.

“I’m still bathing.” My sister.

“I’m still shitting.” I fart for emphasis.

She keeps on knocking on the door, over and over
repeatedly. I can’t keep up my blocking and the splinters are really damaging
Mama’s bible. With a sigh I say I need five more minutes. My sister keeps on
knocking. Standing up to wash up, I put Mama’s bible on my bathroom bookshelf. The
bookshelf’s wood, because of the floods, is weak and rickety, the whole
structure is doing a Pisa, but it still stands.

I grab the bar of soap, the dipper. Splishsplash. Tissue
here, there, and everywhere. I push down the flush but the toilet bowl doesn’t
flush. I flush. Nothing’s happening.

Flushed, I ask, “Is the toilet bowl flush broken?”

No answer. I repeat my question.

Nothing. “Why is the toilet bowl not flushing? Is it
broken? Excuse me, the flush is not flushing!” Shouts this time. I knock on the
wooden door.

“Hurry up there.” Is that the only thing she can say? “And
by the way, the flush is broken. Use a pail, use it twice. I don’t want to see
even a bit of shit remaining. If I know you it’s got to be a big pile.”

“It’s not a big pile.” I look at the toilet bowl and
stare at the big pile I just made.

The only pail with water is the big one beside my
bookshelf. She’s telling me to flush with a pail of water twice when she’s the
one who used up the water from the other pails. Women! I stare at the big pail.
I don’t like using that one because it’s heavy. Thunders and splinters. I
breathe in deep and grab the big pail. Up two inches from the floor I drop the
damn heavy thing. It slams against my bookshelf and Mama’s bible is knocked
into my big pile of shit in the toilet bowl.